California and the 2026 Midterms: Pre-Election Roundtable

Join us at the Social Sciences Matrix on Friday, October 30th at 3:30pm for "California and the 2026 Midterms: A Pre-Election Roundtable on the State of the Electorate". This panel event will feature a presentation by Berkeley IGS Poll Director Mark DiCamillo on the latest round of statewide election-related data, conducted in partnership with the LA Times, followed by a moderated discussion with a panel of experts on the results. The discussion will cover the race for governor between Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton, prominent statewide ballot measures including Proposition 39 (Voter ID) and Proposition 40 (Billionaires Tax), and voter attitudes toward the key issues shaping the 2026 election.

Panelists:

• Mark DiCamillo, Berkeley IGS Poll Director, UC Berkeley (Panelist)

• Gabriel Lenz, Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley

• Seema Mehta, Staff Writer, Politics, Los Angeles Times

Moderator:

• Hunter E. Rendleman, Assistant Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley

The event will be followed by a light reception.

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This event is co-sponsored by the Institute of Governmental Studies and the Jack Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research.

About the Panelists:

Mark DiCamillo is director of the Berkeley IGS Poll, a non-partisan survey of California public opinion on matters of politics, public policy and public affairs conducted by the Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) at UC Berkeley. Working under IGS co-directors Eric Schickler and Cristina Mora, he is responsible for overseeing the design and execution of each poll, as well as preparing reports and press releases summarizing its findings to the news media. DiCamillo has been actively involved in measuring public opinion in California since 1978, when he joined Field Research Corporation, founded by legendary pollster Mervin Field. He worked under Mr. Field as assistant director of the statewide Field Poll for fifteen years, and in 1993 succeeded Field to become its director and served in that capacity through 2016. During his tenure, The Field Poll consistently was ranked among the nation’s most accurate and reliable polls in Nate Silver’s Fivethirtyeight.com’s biennial evaluation of major polling organizations across the United States. During this period DiCamillo was also Field Research Corporation’s Senior Vice President and in that role was responsible for conducting large-scale quantitative surveys for state and local government agencies, academic institutions, foundations and non-profit organizations. DiCamillo is a recognized authority on polling in California and is the author of hundreds of reports summarizing California public opinion. Since joining IGS he has worked to expand the operations of the IGS Poll, founded in 2011. For a listing of the press releases and poll reports authored by DiCamillo during his tenure as director of the Berkeley IGS Poll go to https://igs.berkeley.edu/research/berkeley-igs-poll. DiCamillo is a cum laude graduate of Harvard University and holds a Masters in Business Administration from Cornell University’s Johnson School of Business.

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Gabriel Lenz is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. He studies democratic accountability, focusing on how to help voters hold their politicians accountable and how governments can protect people from violence and incarceration. He published a book on elections with the University of Chicago Press and published articles in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and Journal of Politics, and Political Analysis.

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Seema Mehta is a veteran political writer for the Los Angeles Times covering national and state politics, currently writing about the 2026 gubernatorial contest, the proposed billionaire tax and critical California congressional races that may determine control of the House in this year’s midterm election.

She has covered every presidential campaign since 2008, as well as multiple gubernatorial, Senate, congressional and mayoral races.

Mehta was a 2018-19 Knight-Wallace fellow at the University of Michigan, where she studied how automation and artificial intelligence are indelibly changing the nation’s identity, policies and politics.

She was a 2026 fellow leading student study groups at the University of Southern California’s Dornsife Center for the Political Future, and previously taught at Loyola Marymount University.

The Syracuse University graduate and East Coast native swore when she joined The Times in 1998 that she would only spend a few years on the Left Coast. Many years, a house and a few cats later, she can’t imagine living somewhere she couldn’t golf year-round.

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About the Moderator:

Hunter E. Rendleman is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley. Her research examines political and politicized workplaces, with a particular focus on how identity and ideology shape political organizations, behavior, and outcomes. Her scholarship spans American politics, political behavior, and organizations and has appeared in leading academic journals, including the American Political Science Review and Political Behavior. Her work offers important insights into how individuals and institutions interact within contemporary American politics.